Mod News: Silence Is Golden

It’s been an unusually quiet week in the world of mod news. Perhaps all our humble developers have been scurrying away in front of their PCs actually getting some work done, and that’s why we’ve seen very few items of news but another collection of new releases and updates, ready for you to play right now. This week: the first Portal 2 mod, a new version of Action Half-Life 2 after several years, fan creations for Oblivion, Fuel, Battlefield 2 and – goodness me – a bunch more below the jump.NEWS

Here’s a new Half-Life 2 mod for you, and it has an awesome name, even if I do suspect the apostrophe is misplaced. In Peremptorys’ Shadow attempts to “bring some realism back to the classic horror and adventure story that always came before massive graphics.” I’m not sure “realism” was the word being reached for there, but whatever: this sets out to be a traditional horror, and the early screenshots look fairly nice.

Still in Half-Life 2 mode, Firearms: Source has a few upcoming player models to show off. A surprising amount of thought has gone into them, and not just from an aesthetic point of view; having a read of the text beyond that link is very well advised.

Also, Battlefield 2 mod Forgotten Hope 2 is preparing for a big ol’ update, and today its developers have released some screenshots of and information about one of the maps included. “In this snowy landscape,” reads the description, “players will find themselves using all the elements of combined arms as either German or American soldiers, tankers, pilots, and artillery gunners.” There’s more, as you’ll have guessed, on ModDB.

RELEASES

Colours is, I believe, the first Portal 2 mod to emerge. Certainly the first I’ve paid attention to, anyway. Only the first four maps have been released thus far, since the mod’s creator has had to go back to focusing on his job as a professional game developer for the time being. Colours seems to be mainly “Portal with added hues” – and although there doesn’t appear to be much new other than the tasty colour palette, the puzzles are supposedly more challenging too. Grab it from ModDB.

There’s also a new Amnesia: The Dark Descent mod, called Labyrinth. It’s only a small one, by the looks of it, but I continue to be intrigued by what people are making with Amnesia’s tools. I’ll be checking this out as soon as I can. Feel free to do so yourself in the meantime.

UPDATES

FUEL: REFUELED, with all its sexy capital letters, has been updated to a spectacular v15.4. Fifteen-point-four! The changes this time around are mainly to do with vehicles, letting quad bikes do wheelies and various off-road monsters go faster. More changes can be spied in the relevant ModDB post, from where the update can also be downloaded.

There’s also a Battlefield 1942 mod called Battlefield 1918 which, three years after development started, has reached the ripe old age of Version 3.1. And with it comes the end: this is to be its last update, the devs now considering their work complete. The mod is, obviously, a World War 1 total conversion, and during the time it’s been alive it’s been extremely well-received. Download the final version from ModDB.

And the new version of delightful multiplayer mod Action Half-Life 2 has been released, as well. Already there are some bug reports, which are being looked into, but early talk is good. Here, have a release trailer.

Finally, huge Oblivion mod Dibella’s Watch has received another update. Beta 09 focuses mainly on changes to the landscape – in fact, it’s said to be the largest landscape update to date. As well as added ground detail and the like, there are a couple of new settlements. Have a look at the full changelog, and grab the download.